It was three years ago this week when I began an experiment inproducing a new form of IT product reviews, using video screencastingtechnology, combined with my years of testing thousands of products.Since then, I have done more than 65 reviews, which works out to abouttwo a month. After putting a product through its paces, I write andrecord the script and then publish the video far and wide.

Certainly, online video has come a long way in the past three years:streaming sites have come and gone, YouTube has gotten more powerful,and social networking now plays a key part of how anybody's videosfind an audience. And the consumer side seems to be leading the way:Now we are talking about "cutting the cord" of cable TV and how morepeople are going online to get their content. Netflix and Hulu have arobust streaming business. And Centris has found that approximately56% of households are using a combination of traditional pay TV and PCor mobile-based Internet consumption approaches to view video.

The reviews are paid for by the vendors themselves and have been a bighit, if I do say so myself. I have repeat business from some of themajor computer vendors, including McAfee, Symantec, Blue Coat and Dellas well as smaller niche players such as Hytrust and TuneUp. Theyreally help explain the product and provide a potential IT purchaserthe basic context of how the product works, or won't work, in theirparticular environment. Several VARs have called my vendor clientswanting to bring their customers to the table because of somethingthey saw on one of my videos. And they continue to collect viewsmonths after they have been posted, including on sites such as Tom'sITPro.com, InfoSecIsland.com and ITExpertVoice.com. My YouTube channel(davidstrom2007) has done very nicely, with several videos gettingmore than 5,000 views (Symantec's videos are the most popular there).

So here are some lessons learned from the experience.

1. YouTube isn't the only game in town. There are other sites,particularly for how-to and business audiences, where videos arewatched. 5Min.com, which is now part of AOL, is one of the best.VideoJug.com and Metacafe.com are also up there in terms of my stats.But that is just me, and who knows why these sites connect and othersdon't – your mileage may vary. But what is clear is that one site'spopular post is another site's dog. For example, a video I did forMcAfee's Trusted Source has more than 40,000 views on 5Min, but isgoing nowhere on YouTube with less than 200 views. So if you are goingto post, post everywhere you can to garner an audience.

2. Length matters. And the shorter the better. I use a hosting servicecalled Wistia.com that can track how many people tune out over thelength of time for the video, and about half tune out before theending slide pops up. When I started I aimed at five minutes or less.Now I try for three minutes. We are all ADD. Wistia did a survey a fewyears ago across their hosting site and agreed with me. The key ishaving dialog supporting action: just don't spew platitudes but backup the action you have on the screen with something important to say.For most of the videos, I talk quickly because I want my viewers toreally listen. I can see places where they have stopped and rewoundthe stream and think that is a Good Thing because they are moreengaged with my content.

3. Formats are still painful and plentiful. Every streaming site has adifferent collection of which video codecs and formats it will accept.Flash (FLV) files used to be best, now I produce MP4s, which seem tobe accepted in most places. Make the biggest size video that can fityour site, but realize that a lot of the streaming sites will downcodeit to 640x480 or something less than optimal. But this presents aproblem to show many computer products that like to sprawl across a2000-pixel wide display.

4. Get the best quality mic and record your soundtrack first. I don'tuse any special music or effects; it is just me narrating the video.But I get this track nailed down first; always keeping in mind theaction that is going on the screen. This is the reverse of traditionalmovie making, but you don't see me on screen – it is just the computerapp that I am reviewing. It is a lot easier to synchronize the videoto a fixed audio track than the other way around. Some screencastersrecord the audio while they are clicking around for the video captureat the same time: I don't think that works as well.

5. Put a call to action at the end. Do you want a viewer to download afree trial or get a white paper or register for something on yoursite? Include a URL in the video where they can go do these tasks. Ifyou are using the video for lead gen, do you have a trackable URLreserved for this purpose?

Thanks to all my video clients for helping make this series sospectacular. And if you would like me to produce a video for you, orteach you how I have done it, you know where to find me. The videosby the way are all posted on Webinformant.tv.